


Burn Inside the Fire

by kpark



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Evil Men Experience Emotion, Fairly Detailed Description of Injuries, M/M, stream of thought
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 10:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15817158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kpark/pseuds/kpark
Summary: Ocelot doesn't feel a single thing, unless it's for John.





	Burn Inside the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I started having feelings in the shower at 1am, then wrote this all on my phone the second I got out.

“I never felt a human emotion ‘till I met you, John.”  
Ocelot says these words to Snake’s unconscious body, laying across his lap. The flickering orange light of the oil lamp beside him causes shadows to dance across his love’s face, exaggerating wrinkles that deepen each day. Blood streaks Snake’s skin, spoils of war from the mission he’d just completed. When he returned he walked straight past the active medic’s station, and ducked under the entrance of Ocelot’s tent without a word, but with a face that looked like “I’m home”. 

Were he any less consumed by emotion Ocelot would criticize Snake, drag him out of the tent and pass him off to the medic. Ocelot can tell from the careful shallowness of his breath and the uncomfortable arch of his back that he probably has a broken rib or two. Bloodstains shaped like ugly flowers tell Ocelot that Snake chanced a dance with some bullets tonight as well. Snake was always good at extracting bullets from his own wounds, but he’s gotten infections from not properly sanitizing before.

But alas, Ocelot is consumed by emotion, and he doesn’t care at all to pull his head out from under the waves. He basks in the fear. Some unexplained sorrow. And extreme, intense, straining warmth. Love. 

He feels fear like a child watching his favorite toy fall from a ten story window. He feels it grip his heart and make his head go numb, like his eyes are being held open against his will, like his mouth is full of cotton and his veins are full of electricity. Every day Snake marches off to face another challenge; a new name, a new mask, but always the same foe. Death. Every day, Snake wins, and marches back boasting life that sometimes yields but never stops, a flame so strong that water can’t put it out. But maybe, just maybe, someday, he won’t win. Death will lick his fingers and pinch the wick of the candle and the flame will be extinguished, as simple as any other death. 

Ocelot is so full of fear that he’s never known before, which he’s never felt compelled to feel for anyone else. People die. Life isn’t fair. Ocelot dodges death as much as any other man, but he knows not every revolver that Death juggles is empty. Someday Death will pull the trigger and the bullet will fly, and if he has a soul, the bullet will leave his body with more than blood and bone. It’s a dull prospect, an unfavorable outcome, but Ocelot never learned to fear his own death. He only fears John’s. He can’t get enough of that fear.

He feels sorrow like a pipe leak growing into a flood. Drop after maddening drop that echoes through the basement until the floor is a puddle, then a pond, then a lake. It’s a slow-moving river that doesn’t batter him against rocks, doesn’t threaten to throw him over a waterfall, but strips his life away with the steady flowing of the current. It never ends, it will never end. The pain they know now will rain down forever. There is no rest, even when the sun shines, because clouds will always loom on the horizon. The sprouts of new life after destruction are fragile, and the rains will drown them time and time again. 

Ocelot doesn’t question his own past. He doesn’t know if he deserves what he’s given because he doesn’t ask. But every now and then Ocelot wonders if John deserves it. Fate twisted him and stripped him bare, left him wild and violent and empty. Forced sins into his hands then patted him on the back. What else was he to do? Snake never cries like a beat dog, doesn’t limp on his bruised leg or ask for mercy. Snake takes the hand he’s dealt with a flawless poker face and wins every round. But he still stops and stares every time he sees a white flower. For that, he’ll feel sorrow, even if John can’t.

He feels love like nothing else. He can’t describe it. It’s everything to be disgusted by and adored all at once, so overwhelming and all-encompassing that Ocelot can never escape it, no matter how hard he tries. It caught ahold of him the first time they met and never let go. Ocelot knows his feelings for John are tainted with obsession and jealousy, a hunger to be needed and a hunger to control, to be controlled. But at times like this, when Snake is so simple and so bare, there’s nothing but love. Thoughts may be impure, situations may be filthy, but this emotion alone could never do harm.

Ocelot never questioned his past, but every time he sees John he questions the future. Begs for it. Pleads on his knees to someone who isn’t listening for a future that doesn’t exist, a future where there’s no pain, no fear, no sorrow, only Adam and John. Warmth and fullness until the end. 

When the end comes, there will be no mercy. Realistically, Ocelot knows he and Snake have no future other than the one that they’ve built for themselves. It’s relentless, and offers little satisfaction. More likely than not, they’ll die separate, alone. Ocelot can only pray he dies for John, the only wish he’s ever had, and one he can’t rationally justify. He doesn’t much care for ideals, for any one dream or vision. He only cares for John. The most perfect world is the one where he stands closest to John, where he’s most useful to John, where he drowns himself in the love he feels for John for as long as he can. If that’s a world of peace, he’ll do it. If that’s a world of war, he’ll do it. 

No one is watching, so Ocelot slowly slips the glove off of his right hand. It’s an uncomfortable feeling actually, unnatural, until he runs his fingertips across Snake’s cheek. There’s nothing more natural than this.

To touch anything else, anyone else, with his bare skin like this… would be pointless. No person is worthless, everyone has their use, but Ocelot has never known empathy for these people. Everyone has their use, and that’s what they’re good for. Lives aren’t worth any more than deaths. Ocelot knows this is true, even for himself. It’s use and be used, succeed or fail, then die. There’s no glory or relief, no catharsis. No meaning. No answer. 

That’s not true for Snake, though. He doesn’t know why. Why is there meaning in John’s existence, in the way his eyes meet Ocelot’s, in the proud unyielding stature of his body, in his unrelenting strength, in the weight of his body on Ocelot’s? The answer is there, in the question, and Ocelot can’t read it but he knows it exists. It’s enough. It always will be. 

On a path to nowhere in a world they’ll destroy, Adam feels everything, only for John.

**Author's Note:**

> Amidst all the happy AUs I have in my head, I felt like writing something from the perspective of how I perceive a more canonical Ocelot. I figure he's pretty damn neurotic, and his reasons are as complex and stupid as they are simple and stupid.
> 
> Not related to the fic, you can see my MGS fanart here: http://padkai.tumblr.com/tagged/my-mgs-art


End file.
